Financing of women-owned ventures: The impact of gender and other owner -and firm-related variables

Abstract

While women-owned ventures represent an increasing proportion of new businesses in most western countries, most of them have particular financing patterns and encounter barriers in their access to financing. Recent research on the question argues that barriers to financing are mainly dependent on factors other than gender, such as owner-and firm-related characteristics. This quantitative and qualitative study, through descriptive statistics and interview analysis, examines the relationship between financing patterns and barriers and gender from the woman entrepreneur's viewpoint. It explores the behaviours and representations of women entrepreneurs towards financing, and considers to what extent the women see their own approaches as being different from those of men. Our study suggests that a gender effect still exists, and tries to identify its location and the corresponding implications for further research and action.

A Comparison of New Firm Financing by Gender: Evidence from the Kauffman Firm Survey Data

“…When they categorized the firms by growth potential, the authors found that women in high growth or traditionally male-dominated lines of business encountered fewer gender-related barriers to borrowing than women in more traditional service or retail lines of business. Constantinidis et al (2006) found a high level of risk aversion in the women entrepreneurs they interviewed and concluded that women may choose lifestyle types of businesses to balance family and business demands and to avoid dependence on external sources of capital.…”

“…Similarly, women were no less likely to be approved once they had applied for a loan. Constantinidis et al (2006) found differences in both demand and supply side patterns when they studied women entrepreneurs in Belgium. Ironically, although 86% of their loan requests were approved, almost 50% of the women surveyed indicated that they experienced barriers in their attempts to secure loans.…”

“…Some researchers have suggested that the desire for control and a higher level of risk aversion lead women business owners to keep their firms small and manageable (Cliff 1998;Orser and Hogarth-Scott 2002;Morris et al 2006). By the same token, women are more likely to avoid external sources of financing which would force them to give up control and take on higher levels of risk (Verheul and Thurik 2001;Constantinidis et al 2006). Taken together, these various characteristics and motivations for women-owned firms may have an effect on the types of capital they seek and are able to obtain.…”

“…The same holds true with levels of financial capital. Prior research suggests that women start their businesses with smaller amounts of capital and are less likely to raise capital from external sources (Robb and Wolken 2002;Constantinidis et al 2006;Orser et al 2006;Fairlie and Robb 2009).…”

The Relationship between the Risk of a Change of the Interest Rate and the Age of Entrepreneurs among Slovak SMEs

“…Dong and Men (2014) and Abor et al (2014) consider the limited access to external financing including bank loans as one of SMEs growth obstacle. Several other authors like Garwe and Fatoki (2012), Roper and Scott (2009), Mijid (2009), Constantinidis et al (2006), Zwan et al (2010), Mama and Ewoudou (2010), Freel et al (2010), Nkundabanyanga et al (2014), Ključnikov and Belás (2016) and Krasniqi (2010), etc. devote their attention to this topic.…”